← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Trump's D.C. Crime Edge, and Joe Scarborough on How the Democrats Can Confront and Beat Trump
01:16:38
Mark opens today’s show with his reported monologue on the Democrats’ ten-year failure to answer a basic question: how to beat Donald Trump at politics. He begins with Trump’s gambit to address Washington, D.C.’s crime troubles, then examines the counterargument from Trump’s opponents – which exposes a major weakness for Democrats and the corporate media: the absence of a clear, consistent “theory of the case” for taking him on. While Trump dominates headlines and shapes the conversation, Mark argues that Democrats still lack a strategy that can counter his media mastery and his connection with voters on many of the issues that matter most. Then, Joe Scarborough joins the program for a wide-ranging conversation on his strong views about how to grapple with the President, including the political fight over crime, higher education, and the future of American elections. He explains how Democrats have erred in the crime debate against Trump, why pointing to statistics is “maddening...
Loading summary
Transcript112 lines
- [00:02]
Mark Halperin
Are you ready to get spicy? These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy. Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me. Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet.
- [00:16]
Joe Scarborough
Maybe it's time to turn up the.
- [00:18]
Mark Halperin
Heat or turn it down. It's time for something that's not too spicy. Try Doritos Golden Sriracha Spicy but not too spicy.
- [00:30]
Joe Scarborough
Avoiding your unfinished home project because you're.
- [00:33]
Mark Halperin
Not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes so you don't have to don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is.
- [00:42]
Joe Scarborough
With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.
- [00:44]
Mark Halperin
You just have to hire one.
- [00:45]
Joe Scarborough
You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on.
- [00:49]
Mark Halperin
The app Download today. Good day. Nexters from coast to coast and around the world. Thank you for being part of NextUp. Very happy to have you here. I'm Mark Halperin. Thank you. Editor in chief of the live Interactive video platform 2way and your guide to everything that's next up in politics, media and beyond. We've done the last couple episodes with a heavy focus on media. Today our guest is someone from the media, my friend Joe Scarborough, host of the Morning Joe on msnbc. But our focus is not going to be much on the media, although we'll talk some about it. More on the Democratic Party, this Trump phenomena, 10 years now of Donald Trump dominating international politics. There's a lot of angles to it. I think arguably the biggest and most undercovered angle is how Democrats have grappled with him for the last 10 years. You can't say they've been that successful. He's won two out of three presidential races and while he's not done as well down ballot, it's certainly the case that Donald Trump gets his way a lot and he has for the last six months in this term. So what we're going to talk to Joe about, what I'm going to talk about in my reported monologue is this question of how are Democrats doing? And to the extent they're not succeeding battling Donald Trump, why not? Are they doing the wrong things? Are they doing the right things poorly? There's no one I know who knows more about this question than Joe. He and I talk about this stuff all the time. So excited to share that conversation with you because Democrats who are so frustrated and former Republicans who've left the party over Donald Trump, they're so frustrated by how often he wins, they have so little respect for him. And most of them don't know him. And I think part of why they don't do well going up against him is they don't understand him. And Joe, of course, knows Donald Trump. He spent time with him, as I've. As have I. I talked to so many Democratic strategists and politicians and voters all the time. They've never met him. And as Donald Trump will tell you, the reason he's flying to Alaska to meet with Putin rather than just talking to him over a phone or a video call is because there's something about sizing somebody up in person. Joe, like, Trump understands people, and he sized up Donald Trump. He's also a former member of Congress, someone who understands media and politics. And this question, how to beat Trump, whether it's at a ballot box or in the media or an issues fight, is something that I think Democrats just don't do very well. And that's a puzzle, because it's the thing they want to do best. It's the thing they want to do most. They want to beat him. Back in 2019, I wrote a book called how to Beat Trump. Now, it's not an advocacy of beating Trump. It was my fascination with the question, having lost to Donald Trump in 2016, how did the smartest Democratic strategists in the country feel about beating him in 2020? How did they think about the lessons learned from 2015, 16, 17, 18? And I talked to, really, some of the smartest Democrats, a lot of the smartest Democrats. I think I talked about 100 people for the book, and I basically just asked them the question, how do you beat Donald Trump? Now, that was pre Covid and for, for history's sake, you know, the book doesn't, doesn't say, well, the best way to beat Donald Trump is to have him run during a pandemic. And there's no doubt, I don't think anybody would dispute that part of why Donald Trump lost was the pandemic. Maybe the biggest part, maybe, you know, that dominates everything. So I think that you have to. You have to ask the question, okay, if Democrats had some ideas in 2019. And again, I'd go read the book if you haven't to see some pretty good ideas. I'm proud of the book and the reporting I did because I think there's as much in there as I've seen anywhere else about how to beat Trump. Right. What are the lessons there? But we're in a new time. He's now an incumbent president for the Second time. And there's a strong belief that in his world, in Trump world, that they know how to beat the Democrats. Whether it's what's happening this week on crime, whether it's immigration, whether it's the economy, Donald Trump himself and his team have a lot of confidence that the other side can't beat Trump. Joe Scarborough has an expression that if you're moving 800 miles an hour, it's very hard to catch somebody. And I modify that expression a little bit, which is if you're an 800 pound gorilla moving 800 miles per hour, really hard to catch and stop somebody. And that's what Trump is. And I say to Democrats all the time, if you think Trump is so pathetic, if you think he's senile, delusional, a loser, you got to ask yourself, why haven't you figured out how to beat him? And Trump himself sees in the Democratic Party people who aren't very good at the game. He knows that. And in 2015, when he was thinking about running for president, he's like, I gotta be Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton to win the White House. And he thought, well, they got a lot of baggage, those two. And they're not great political athletes in Trump's view. And he looks at today's Democrats and that's what he thinks. And how do I know that? Because the other day he gave up the game and basically slipped into political analyst mode and said, yeah, the Democrats don't really have good game keying off of what was happening on crime. But he feels that in general. Here is Donald Trump political analyst A2.
- [06:06]
Joe Scarborough
The Democrats, they don't, they don't approve anything. It's amazing. It's like they just don't want to vote for anything. They've got the yips. You know, in golf they say the yips. The Democrats are afraid to do anything because they don't want to be criticized. But fighting crime is a good thing. We have to explain we're going to fight crime. That's a good thing. Already they're saying he's a dictator, the place is going to hell and we've got to stop it. So instead of saying he's a dictator, they should say we're going to join him and make Washington safe. But.
- [06:40]
Mark Halperin
So he knows that his two main antagonists, both the Democratic Party and the dominant media, have learned pretty much nothing since 2016. They did beat him in 2020, but as I said, Covid played a big part in that. They have beat him in some of these midterm contests and down ballot races. But Trump himself dominates our national politics right now. Does he have problems? Sure. But the Democrats cannot stop him. The other day I sat down for my newsletter and I said, you know, today I'm going to write about the top list of top 10 Democrats who are doing the best job combating Donald Trump. And I have to say, didn't go very well. I got to just a handful. And even those three or four or five, maybe, I can't remember, even that list was not particularly good. You know, Gavin Newsom is in the game. He's got the platform of being governor of California. He's very tech savvy, media savvy. He goes, does a lot of media, generates a lot of content himself. He has a big email list of folks that he can send to a big texting list, big on social media. But he's also got a job being governor of California. He's in California three hours behind the Eastern media. And, you know, you think about Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, you think about, even if you include it to people like Rachel Maddow, there just aren't a lot of people out there in the Democratic Party who are on a regular basis effectively taking on Donald Trump. It happens episodically, but Trump's in the news cycle constantly. Everybody knows that. Trump knows how to play the game. And again, that statement, Trump knows how to play the game. That's not cynical. It's not pro Trump. It's just factual. And again, it's something Joe Scarborough and I talk about all the time, like, Trump is Muhammad Ali. Trump is da Vinci. Trump knows what he's doing. And if you disagree with him on policy, if you think he's ruining the country, violating norms, treating our allies poorly, you're not going to stop any of that effectively, if you can't compete with him, how to beat Trump, Right? Take this. What's going on with the policing situation? You'd be cynical if you say Trump is doing this purely for politics, because he's not. He's a builder and he likes order. He likes clean cities. He doesn't like our nation's capital, where he now lives, having crappy streets and homelessness and hopelessness camps and law and disorder and crime, doesn't like it and has assets from the federal government and the law that pertains to the District of Columbia that allows him to do something about it. Now he's, I can tell you, just with great confidence, knowing Trump, listening to what he said, knowing people around him, his Primary motivation here is to try to help the people of the city. I'll take heat, I'm sure, in some quarters for saying that, but I don't have any doubt. But I also will say, yeah, does he see the politics as this? Of course. Does he want to go into the midterm year talk having people saying which party will keep us safer, which party is, is dominates the cities that are the unsafest parts of the United States? Of course he does. And of course he understands exactly what's going to happen when he raises this as an issue. But. And that's, it's what he did in immigration in 2016. It's what he did in immigration in 2024. The Democrats, part of why they can't beat Trump is they don't understand that Trump talks mostly, not exclusively, but mostly about popular things, not just core maga, red meat issues. It's popular to say change the status quo in our cities so our cities are safer. That's popular. It's popular with people who live in the cities. It's popular with people live in the suburbs. So I've been looking at and listening to what are Democrats saying about this D.C. policing situation. What are they saying? Here's the president take away that it's Trump. President United States says our nation's capital, which should be a beautiful crown jewel, is, is a violent place. A lot of crime, a lot of citizens are concerned. And he says, I'm going to do something about it and I'm going to use the powers that I have for taking over the D.C. police, for activating the National Guard. Two things he can do in D.C. harder to do the second one in the other states. Can't do the first one other states because the law for D.C. and then I'm going to use active duty military to try to restore orders to this city. So there are lots of ways a Democrat could react to that. And certainly I urge everybody one way to react to it for sure is to say, all right, let's make sure this is being done right, no civil rights being violated, no interference with normal policing in a way that's deleterious to the public interest. Absolutely needs to be done by the press. And Democrats and others, even Republicans, should want to do that, too. But the way Democrats have reacted to this is about process and objection and about nitpicking at the whole thing. So let's look at some of what Democrats have said. First, here's former transportation secretary, former South Bend mayor, past and probably future presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. A3 as we speak, the federal government is taking over the policing of a major American City, Washington, D.C. the president is doing this not in order to make the city safer, that's the job of local law enforcement, but to solve his own political problems. He needs to get his base talking and thinking about something besides his refusal to open up the Epstein files because he's mixed up in them. Again, people just saying, president's not doing it to make the city, the city safer, and says it has to do with the Epstein files. Maybe it does. I'll concede the point. Maybe the President's trying to distract from Epstein, but he's also doing the only thing to change the status quo, to change the status quo. To say the people of D.C. are not going to get safer because of what's happening in the D.C. government by itself. They need some help. Now, Democrats from around the country, law enforcement officials, elected officials, have reacted to this, too. Same lines, same lines with hostility and suspicion and trying to beat the President at the law enforcement game. Here's the DA of Philadelphia on CNN. A4.
- [12:56]
Joe Scarborough
What he's trying to do here is not normal. As Wanda Sykes, one of my faves would say, it's not normal to act like you can go into a city that is having tremendous progress, 30 year low in crime, and call it an emergency and bring in a bunch of troops who aren't even trained for this kind of work. He may think he's going to try it in other places, but the fact is, legally, he has much less of a right to do any of this in other cities, and he better not.
- [13:23]
Mark Halperin
Try it in Philly. All right, Larry Krasner, the District Attorney in Philadelphia, says what Trump's doing is not normal. Okay, Here's a lesson Democrats should learn going back to 2015. Donald Trump's popularity is based in large part because he says to voters and citizens, I'm not going to do what's normal. Normal doesn't work. You know, it's normal for people on the streets of D.C. in fancy neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods. You know what's normal? Normal is they're afraid to go out to buy, buy a quart of milk. That's what's, quote, unquote, normal. So when Donald Trump says, I'm going to shut down the border and some norms are going to be violated, a majority of the Americans say, good. When Donald Trump says, I want to try to fix this by doing something not normal, that's good. All right, here's Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. On paper, he should be the leading voice for the party in standing up to Donald Trump. When the party objects and they think they're on the right side of history and the right side of polling. A5. This is Ken Martin's on Twitter talking about, again, the policing situation in D.C.
- [14:33]
Joe Scarborough
I can go ahead and talk to.
- [14:34]
Mark Halperin
Him and say, you know what, Donald? Sit your little ass down and get the hell out of D.C. if you.
- [14:38]
Joe Scarborough
Have one message for Donald Trump and.
- [14:39]
Mark Halperin
You are speaking to him right now.
- [14:40]
Joe Scarborough
What would you say? It's hard to think of exactly the right words. Off DC you don't stand a chance.
- [14:48]
Mark Halperin
You do not understand the assignment. Back off.
- [14:50]
Joe Scarborough
Why don't you just go ahead and take your ass, go back to Florida.
- [14:55]
Mark Halperin
So that's a video. The voices you heard were citizens. The Donald, the Ken Martin, the DNC chairs. Interviewing and they're saying, you know, they don't like Donald Trump. Right. Using profanity, all the, all the normal tricks now of social media. Obviously they chose to talk to people hostile to it. I haven't seen polling since. I hope somebody does a poll soon. But Ken Martin's out there on the streets of D.C. talking to people who are hostile, not talking to people who are saying, well, this might be good. And again, it's just object, criticize. Here's Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. AA so here's what Hakeem Jeffries writes on Twitter. He says violent Crime in Washington, D.C. is at a 30 year low. Again, there are people who now say Trump purposely gets the statistics wrong. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it'd be consistent with his brilliance of baiting the Democrats. So Trump claims, Trump claims crimes at an all time high. And Democrats say, oh, no, no, crime's at an all time low. So now they're drawn into the debate. The statistics don't matter. Okay, then, Hakeem Jeffries continuing on his tweet. Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. In fact, the law allows him to do it. And zero credibility. On the issue of law and order, I'd say if you look at the polling, Democrats aren't necessarily beating Trump on credibility on Law Order. Then he says, get lost. Similar comments from Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader. All of these Democrats drawn into a conversation about should we, should we reject Donald Trump's attempts to make D.C. safer or not. Now, again, I don't want to minimize their criticism. Some of them have some validity. Republicans in Congress have cut the D.C. budget, which they deal with. That's hurt their ability maybe to fight crime. There's other issues. Some want to bring up January 6th and say Trump has no credibility on the issue of law and order for, for law enforcement in D.C. but the point is their general behavior, their general reaction does not exhibit an understanding that the people in D.C. don't feel the status quo on crime is good. And I can tell you that from all the people I know in D.C. and you can tell that from walking the streets. Okay? The other, the other big group that usually fights the President is the dominant media. They're the same as the Democrats. Most of the coverage of what the President's done on crime in D.C. has been hostile and has looked to say he's lying about the statistics. And this is improper and it violates norms here too. I could show you a thousand different ones here too. Members of the distinguished members of the New York Times D.C. bureau. Elizabeth Buemler, great reporter, she's been there forever. Serious person. Here's Elizabeth Buehmiller on MSNBC giving her view of crime in dc. A six, please.
- [17:45]
Joe Scarborough
I mean, right now, I think a lot of this is just, it's very good television for the President. And his description of Washington as this, as one of my colleagues at the Times called it, this sort of, you know, this Mad Max hellscape with marauding gangs and violence everywhere is just completely.
- [18:02]
Mark Halperin
Out of proportion with the reality.
- [18:03]
Joe Scarborough
Yes, there's crime here, but it's down.
- [18:07]
Mark Halperin
Well, I don't know, Mad Max. I don't know, maybe it's not a non stop Mad Max. And you can walk around D.C. in certain areas, certain times a day, not be a problem. But I can tell you in the fanciest neighbors and neighborhoods in D.C. this is a problem. And for these reporters to, to just basically say Donald Trump's making it up, it's not good journalism. Here's Peter Baker, Elizabeth Buellmiller's New York Times colleague, making a similar point to her.
- [18:32]
Joe Scarborough
A7 if you really cared about crime in the District of Columbia, where crime is actually down historically, if you actually care about crime in America, there are cities with worse crime rates than Washington D.C. he's not sending troops into their streets. He's sending troops into the streets of the nation's capital, which has a special resonance. The idea that troops would be patrolling in any way a nation's capital sends a message that we've never seen again in this country outside of riots and genuine uprisings, that we don't see right now, crime is at a low. As anybody who has grown up in the Washington area, as I did, I was born and raised in the Washington area, spent my whole life there. And it's never we know what a crime crisis looks like. We've lived through that. This is not what that looks like.
- [19:19]
Mark Halperin
Again, I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area too, just like Peter Baker. And I can tell you, everyone I know who lives there, literally everyone I know who lives there, recognizes that it is an unsafe place. I don't care if crime's up. I don't care if it's down. I don't care if it's an all time high or an all time low. I just know that when Peter Baker says stuff like, we've never seen this before. We've never seen it well, right. And we've never seen an open border like this. We've never seen so many Americans feeling like their standard of living is going down and their kids won't have the same opportunity that they do. So if the question is how does the media, who wants to beat Donald Trump and how do Democrats who want to beat Donald Trump, how do they actually do it? Well, you got to find a theory of the case. And I would say fighting with Donald Trump about Whether crime in D.C. is bad, when you can give a lot of examples, just go, go knock on somebody's door who's got one of those ring doorbell cameras and say, hey, you ever catch anybody committing a crime on your doorbell camera? A lot of them are going to say, yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it on my dad's doorbell camera. It's crazy. It's crazy what our nation's capital is like and other cities are like it, too. But for them to say, well, why are you doing D.C. why not do St. Louis? Well, first of all, the law allows them to do more in D.C. number two, it's where he lives now. And so he sees, when he goes out, he hears about it. And also our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. where tourists come, many tourists come to the United States. First place they go is DC they maybe they go someplace else around the country. Why Washington, D.C. because it's got a problem and it's not being solved by others. This question of how to beat Trump. You need a theory of the case. And I don't know very many Democrats who have one. I interviewed some for my book and again, this was six years ago. They had a theory of the case then in some cases, and I thought they had Some good ideas. There's not very many people I know who have an actual theory of the case, but one person I know who does is Joe Scarborough. Joe has been talking on Morning Joe about this question of how to go up against Donald Trump on crime. Here's a bit of what he said this week on his program, A nine.
- [21:32]
Joe Scarborough
This is a fascinating story because so many people have been calling me over the past couple days going, you know, like Washington should have gotten involved years ago. This place is dangerous. It's a mess, it's a wreck and whatever. And then they'll go on Twitter, go. This is the worst outrage of all time. The jockeying, which I understand, it's like people need to express their concerns about Donald Trump going too far. But, man, I don't care what the crime statistics say. Crime has been a problem, problem in this city for the 32 years I've been living inside and outside of the city. Very dangerous there. Good. Glad the crime rates are going down, but there is no sense of security for people who've been living in that city for 30 years.
- [22:24]
Mark Halperin
Joe acknowledges the basic facts. And when we talk to him in a minute, you'll, you'll hear that. That's part of what the reality is. You just have to acknowledge the facts. You cannot let Trump derangement syndrome drive you to a place where you don't have a chance to beat him. Democrats want to think about the midterms. They're thinking about 20, 28. Those will both, even though Trump won't be on the ballot, those are both times when they're going to have to learn the lessons how to beat Trump. But they need to do it now because they don't like the first six months and all the stuff he's done. If they don't want him taking over universities, taking over law firms, taking over the media, taking over the Kennedy center, passing bills with reconciliation, doing foreign policy in a way they don't like. If they don't want these things to happen, besides going on cable news or social media and being on their fainting couches and wringing their hands, if they really want to beat them, what are the ways to do it? How to beat Trump. That'll be our topic next up with Joe Scarborough. All right, tell me what you think about today's report. You can always email me at nextup halperin@gmail.com. this program is available on your social media platforms, your exes, your Instagrams, your Tiktoks in those places, the handles the same. Next at NextUp Halperin. And of course, you can watch the program on YouTube@YouTube.com NextUp Halpern. Of course, listen to us as the podcast, wherever you get your podcast. So we're going to dig, I believe, deeper and better into this question, what are the best practices of how to beat Trump? Next up, Joe Scarborough. Everybody's wondering, is the continued divide between Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve putting all of us behind the curve again? Can the Fed take the right action at the right time, or are we all going to be looking at a potential economic slowdown? Well, what does this mean for your savings? Here's an idea. Consider diversifying with gold through the Birch Gold Group. For decades, gold has long been viewed as a safe haven in times of economic stagnation, when there's global uncertainty or high inflation. And Birch Gold makes it incredibly easy for you to diversify some of your savings into gold. If you've got an IRA or an old 401k, you can convert that into a tax sheltered IRA with physical gold or you can buy some gold to keep it in your safe. First, though, you should get educated about all this. Birch Gold can send you a free info kit about gold. Just text the word next to the number 989-898. Again, text the word next to 989-898. Consider now diversifying a portion of your savings into gold. That way, even if the Federal Reserve doesn't stay ahead of the curve for the country, you can stay ahead of the curve for yourself. All right, next up, Joe Scarborough. He's the longtime host of the show Morning Joe on msnbc. He is a student of history, a student of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and a student of Donald Trump. And as I said in my monologue, there's no one who I think has a better theory of the case about how to take this man on how to beat Trump than Joe. Joe welcome back to Next up.
- [25:35]
Joe Scarborough
Hey, it's great to be back, Mark. Thank you so much for having me.
- [25:38]
Mark Halperin
All right, so I want to talk about the crime situation because this is a great case study of how you have a theory of the case and others don't. But in general, circa 2016 to now, what kind of report card would you give the Democratic Party in understanding having a theory of the case about how to beat Trump?
- [25:59]
Joe Scarborough
Well, I mean, it's hard to give them a failing grade certainly from 16 to 20 only because of their extraordinary success in winning elections in 17, 18, 19 and 20. So and in 21 and 22. So they they, they really had a good theory of the case. And while Donald Trump was active on the political stage and a political threat to win again, Democrats actually had a very good theory of the case. And if you just look at the results in 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, they did very well. And partly in 23. The problem for the Democratic Party has come especially now going into 24, for a thousand reasons that we've talked about. But now I find without Donald Trump running again in 2028, the Democrats seem right now to be grasping a bit. And, and they're, well, not a bit. They actually, their approval rating is lower than it's ever been. You actually have a mayor of Detroit that is running as an independent, a Democrat who's running as an independent in Michigan and doing, doing quite well there. And it seems all the energy from the Democratic Party is coming from the far left. Centrists seem to have very little to say, to have very little vision other than, you know, attacking Donald Trump, which did not work in 2024. I would say it's not working in 2025 if you look at their numbers. And so they, they have to, they have to come up with a new strategy.
- [27:51]
Mark Halperin
Yeah, the other metric I'd use, you're right about the ballot box. 2017, forward till 24. But it's also just Trump's changing of America. He changed America a fair amount in his first term. The Democrats, even as they were winning elections, you know, didn't completely stop him. And obviously the six months of this term, he's changing a lot. Right? He's changing a lot. So on crime in D.C. just again, you've talked about it this week, but just drill down what is, what are Democrats doing wrong in their approach to his move to take over the policing of D.C. what are the errors they're.
- [28:25]
Joe Scarborough
Making, you know, with the Democrats right now need to do is stop quoting crime statistics. It's maddening when people quote crime statistics and Americans don't feel that. And you could look at New York City, And I believe 21 and 22 crime was up, started to subside. I believe in 22 going into 23. And everybody was talking about how safe it was. Nobody felt safe. Very few people felt safe in New York City. Those crime numbers were a leading indicator, but you still had quality of life issues. If you had a homeless population all over Manhattan and people that needed to be in shelters for their own protection and for the protection for others and people that were mentally ill roaming around city streets, people in New York and The subways, people in New York weren't going to feel safe. Now, that's changed a good bit now, but I find it just maddening. They hear Democrats talking about how safe Washington D.C. is and look at the crime stats. Look at the crime stats. Well, okay, I remember Marion Barry saying Washington, D.C. is getting safer and the crime stats are going down if you don't count the murders right now, if I'm not mistaken, with the last stat I've seen, Washington D.C. is still ranked number three in large cities with a number of gun homicides. And so even, even if you don't want to talk about that, even if you want to just go to how people are feeling. All right, let's look at the numbers there. There's a Washington Post poll that, that was published just a couple of months ago. 91% of Washington D.C. residents said that crime was a serious problem, with half of D.C. residents saying it was an extremely serious problem. So that's nine out of ten voters telling you crime is a problem. Don't tell them it's not a problem. This, this is shortsighted. This is not helpful. Also when you have people talking about this in terms of race, oh, Donald Trump is using crime as you, you know, as, as, as a means of, of, of attack, attacking black people. Dig into this at that same poll and what you will find in Washington D.C. in 2025 is what you found in New York City and across the country in 2020 during the whole defund the police movement. In this Washington Post poll where nine out of 10 people in Washington D.C. say crime is a big problem, the Washington Post explains that the opinion on crime is sharply divided along racial and economic lines. And guess what? Black voters and poor to working class voters are the ones who see crime as a more serious problem. White voters and affluent people who Live in Washington D.C. do not see crime as a serious of a problem. So, so again, the Democratic Party is being tone deaf here. I really think the best thing that they need to do, the best approach on crime is to say, how can we help? Listen, we understand we're concerned about what you did in Los Angeles. We don't need Marines on the street. We don't need the National Guard on the street. We understand they're on the street right now, but try to make Donald Trump and the Republicans an offer they can't refuse. You want to go beyond one month, you can't do it without Congress voting for it. Unless you're going to declare emergency powers, which the courts most likely won't. Hold up with falling crime rates. But let's figure out how can we do this together, how can we make streets in Washington, D.C. safer? And I think this may be possible because, Mark, you and I have talked offline about the fact that I've had a lot of Democrats, Democrats who worked in the Biden administration, Democrats who worked on the Biden campaign, Democrats who work in Congress, members of media, they all share stories after I talk about how the fact that, yes, crime rates may be going down, but for 35 years, there's been a sense of insecurity. When it's come to crime in Washington, D.C. they'll all tell me their stories about their friends who have been held up, about carjackings, about robberies, burglaries, etc. Etc. Does this mean that officials in Washington, D.C. are doing nothing about. No. Doesn't mean that at all. What it means is there is still a sense of insecurity. And instead of Democrats saying, see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil, they need to step in and say, yes, we agree with the 91% of Washington residents, there is a problem. How can we do this together and make him an offer he can't refuse?
- [33:41]
Mark Halperin
So the statistics from that Washington Post poll, and I wish there was more polling, but I'm sure it would all say the same thing, suggests this is not a hill to die on, trying to say Donald Trump is doing a bad thing by trying to make D.C. safer. And the anecdotal, you and I have the same experience. Every relative, friend and associate we know in Washington, if they've not been a victim themselves, they know plenty of people who have. So what, what is it about the Democratic Party that makes, I mean, we look through, we look through every, every statement we could find. What is it about Democratic Party where they're all singing from a suicidal hymn book, fighting Donald Trump on this and not doing what you say they should.
- [34:21]
Joe Scarborough
Again, while saying offline, yeah, that's a problem.
- [34:26]
Mark Halperin
Yeah. So what, what, what's what drives? I mean, are they all sitting in one big meeting saying, let's once again give Donald Trump a political victory? Because they can't be, they can't be blind to this. They, they've been in this movie before. There's what propels it.
- [34:39]
Joe Scarborough
There's a sense of paralysis. It happened with a Southern border. It happened when I would talk about the Southern border on the show or talk to members of the Biden administration, say this is a problem. And for three years they just didn't think it was a problem. And my complaint about the Democratic Party when I was a Republican member of Congress and now that I'm independent on TV has always been that they think that if they crack down on illegal immigration that they're going to be seen as racists. Right. And not really even from Hispanics. We've seen how that's broken. But among I will just say, and I said it a Reverend Al this morning among white woke activists in the Democratic Party. It's the same thing with crime. If you do anything, if you try to strike any deal with Donald Trump on crime, you're going to be attacked. I'm here to say it's in the Democratic Party's best interest if they want to win next year to figure out how to start doing what Bill Clinton would always do with Republicans and it would drive us crazy. Where they'd say, Mr. President, what do you think about the Republicans plan to do? Fill in the blank. He goes, I think it's a good idea. And then it vetoed 12 of our bills in a row. Still say it's a good idea. And we ended up compromising on welfare reform, balanced the budget four years in a row, did a lot of things together. He still fought us every step of the way, but was always telling the press and always telling the American people that he agreed with our ideas. Who doesn't agree with balancing the budget? Who doesn't agree with welfare reform? In fact, when he wrote his autobiography in the Forward, I broke out laughing because he mentioned up front his two great achievements, balancing the budget and welfare reform, things that he fought us every step of the way. Democrats have to figure out how to do that, how to say, of course, when nine out of 10 people in Washington, D.C. say you have a problem with crime in Washington D.C. we've got to do something now. Does that mean we need to put troops on the, on the streets? Does that mean we need to send Marines in? Does that mean we have to do what Donald Trump does often and that is, you know, play to shock and say, no, no, but let's sit down, let's figure out where we can compromise, how we can make the streets of Washington, D.C. safer and, and do it. But again, you're right. I talked about the southern border. They didn't get it right on the southern border. When the trans commercial came up, I think I've told you, I talked to, you know, everybody in the Democratic establishment and they were like, they just closed their eyes and said, oh, you know that trans commercial at. No, it's, it's not Scoring, nobody's paying any attention to it. It doesn't make any difference at all. And I said, well, why then? Why do I see it 300 times a week when I'm watching NFL games with my son on, on YouTube TV and we have the split screen four ways and it's constant playing? They didn't want to talk about it. They thought they would offend their, their most progressive right wing or left wing white base. So they stayed away from it. And if they had actually talked about it, if they had said, hey, you know what, and they didn't have to attack, they didn't have to attack anybody, they could have said, you know, that policy that Donald Trump is attacking Kamala Harris for, that policy actually was put into effect and memorialized by Donald Trump's own Justice Department in 2019 and by his Bureau of Prisons commissioner in 2019. Here are the documents. We have them. And it would have undercut that commercial. So they could have talked about other things, but for some reason, they figured that was the third rail of Democratic politics. They didn't want to touch that like they don't want to touch crime.
- [38:50]
Mark Halperin
So let's have you play a Democratic Congressman Quimby, and I'll, I'll be a fake television interviewer and I want to run through some issues and, and how, how you would put into practice as a, you know, as a congressperson, Democratic congressperson, how did you put into practice the theory you have about how to deal with Trump on this? So first we'll do crime. Congressman Quimby, what, what do you think of President Trump's taking over the D.C. police force and putting active duty military and National Guard on the streets of.
- [39:18]
Joe Scarborough
D.C. well, I've always been a, I've always been in favor of, of the national government, the federal government, with Congress, with the president taking a more active role in Washington, D.C. for too long, there seems to have been this competitive back and forth between the two. There needs to be a partnership between Congress and Washington, D.C. the first thing we have to do is we've cut their funding by a billion dollars. We need to give them their funding back and encourage them to use that on public safety, encourage them to use that on some programs that the Democratic Party and the Democratic mayor have already started, where they are actually purchasing units where they're going to be able to house the homeless. So we need to encourage that. We also need to figure out how we can get together with the administration, see where there are places where we can agree we're going to disagree. Most of the time. But on crime in Washington D.C. when nine out of ten Democratic or nine out of ten people in Washington D.C. most of whom are Democrats, say that crime is a serious problem, we have a responsibility to do more than just have partisan fights and partisan back and forths. Let's find common ground. Let's see what the administration can do, let's see what Congress can do, and let's see how we can be created a partnership with Mayor Bowser, the leaders of Washington D.C. the Metro Police Department and the people of D.C. that's a win win for everybody.
- [40:59]
Mark Halperin
And obviously what you just said is so far away from what either of us have heard any Democrat say about how to deal with this. Would you have the same posture about issues like trade or Medicare cuts, Medicaid cuts or taxes? Would your position be that, you know, your, your kind of rhetorical strategy be this similar on any of those?
- [41:22]
Joe Scarborough
It would be on trade. I mean, traditionally tariffs. Tariffs have been something that Democrats have supported. Yeah, and, and something that Republicans have opposed, the Wall Street Journal editorial pages has opposed. I think on trade, you could say, yes, we're getting ripped off by country A, B and C. Those are countries we need to aggressively go after. China has been ripping us off since the 1990s. China's been stealing some of our best ideas. Our intellectual property has been been stolen. They've been cooking the books, they've been screwing with their currency. We have to get tough with China and we have to get tough with China right now. And if the President wants the Democrats in Congress to take part in that, sign me up. I'll be the first one to do that. Because I think he's right on some of these things. Do I think that he needs to go after South Korea, Japan, Australia, others who are our best allies against a rising. China? No, not at all. Taiwan?
- [42:21]
Mark Halperin
No.
- [42:22]
Joe Scarborough
We need to be shoulder to shoulder in the Pacific so we can stop the spread of Chinese communism and their influence across the Pacific.
- [42:32]
Mark Halperin
But let me stop you on that.
- [42:35]
Joe Scarborough
Let's try to find common ground with our allies. Cuz together we are so much stronger. If you combine the United States power with the power of the eu, Japan and our allies in Asia, my God, China and Russia don't stand a chance.
- [42:51]
Mark Halperin
Again, that answer is. I just not heard an answer like that from any Democrat, Governor, Senator, someone who's thinking of running for president, et cetera, why can't they give that answer? Why don't they give that?
- [43:00]
Joe Scarborough
I don't know. I don't know. Because you know, when I was considered a right wing congresswoman with a 95% ACU rating. And you know, the papers would always say, oh, he's radical right wing, this, that and the other, and everything's very conservative. But I always sat with Democrats day in and day out, people that I never voted with. And I was like, hey, how do we work together? I've got this bill on education reform, I've got this bill on long term care for federal employees. How do we work together? And sure enough, the more we talk, the more opportunities we had to find common ground. Even during impeachment, even during government shutdowns, even when things looked really ugly on the outside, we were working quietly together and we could always find common ground. Now, there are lines that I would draw and one is the tax cuts. There are no compromise on the tax cuts for billionaires. There is no compromise for tax cuts for multinational corporations. There, there really is no compromise on any of the tax cuts that make the richest of the rich even richer and really hurt the working poor and the working class. Same thing with Medicaid cuts. No compromise on Medicaid cuts. The idea, and I said this, by the way, back when I had one of the most conservative ratings in Congress, the one thing I didn't go along with in Contract With America was Medicaid cuts. And my comment was very clear. I said, if you think that we're running a deficit because the poor is getting too good of a deal in America, you're living in a different America than I am. And you're living in a different America that mothers who take their children into the emergency room at 11 o' clock at night, you know, so they can be in the emergency room as their child's primary health care provider. You know, you're living in a different world than them too. So there are some things that the campaign really needs to be fought over. But there are also two or three issues that Democrats need to sort of diffuse. And that's, that's crime. That's the southern border, and that's, that's the trans issues that again, 90, 80% of Americans are on one side of right.
- [45:19]
Mark Halperin
And the brilliance and sophistication of your answers are like the people who've won the White House. They're like Obama, Clinton, Bush, Trump, which is you're simultaneously telling the base of the party, which no politician can ignore. I get you. I share your values. I understand where you're coming from. But you're also simultaneously finding a way to appeal to centrist moderates, independents, Republicans and Democrats who yearn for common cause around issues where the vast majority of the public agrees, like crime in our cities is out of control.
- [45:52]
Joe Scarborough
Well, yeah. And again, if you have people in those cities saying they feel insecure, then, yeah, let's celebrate the fact that the statistics are going down. You know, violence in D.C. and other places are going down. But it's kind of like people like me talking about how great and how strong the US economy was during the 2024 campaign. It was. It is. Compared to the rest of the world, we are stronger than we have been relative to the rest of the world economically since 1945. And by the way, that was true when Biden was president. That is true when Trump is president. But at the same time, we kept saying that, and Americans felt like they kept falling further and further behind. All right, we could talk about the gdp, we could talk about all these things that were going in the right direction, but they go to the grocery store, they'd go to the gas station, they'd go. And there was an affordability crisis. And that needs to be the Democratic Party's goal. Make the selection about affordability. If you're a centrist. Right. It doesn't just have to be Mamdani, AOC and Bernie Sanders who are doing extraordinary job getting the base fired up for all Democrats. But centrists need to start doing this. And the way you get back to affordability, the way you get back to these issues is you defuse the hot button issues, which used to be abortion and guns. They're not anymore for a variety of reasons. And we don't have to waste our time talking about those reasons now. It is crime. It is. It was the southern border. It is. Or it was in the 24 campaign. The issues involving trans athletes defuse those issues. They're very easy to defuse. And then you start talking about affordability, you start talking about billionaires, you start talking about Mark Zuckerberg getting tax cuts and getting tax breaks, while people in rural America are getting screwed because their child, their parents, their grandparents are going to have their health care providers move out of their counties, and they're going to have to drive an extra 100, 150 miles to get primary care.
- [48:21]
Mark Halperin
All right, take a quick break. And then next up, we're going to talk about Joe Scarborough's roadmap for the Democrats for 2026 and 2028. That's next up. All right, close your eyes and imagine this. What if you could delay your next two mortgage payments? That's right. Close your eyes and imagine this, putting those two payments in your pocket and finally getting yourself a little bit of breathing room. It is all possible if you call American Financing today. If you're feeling stretched by those everyday expenses, the high cost of groceries, the gas bills, the other bills piling up all around you, you are not alone. Most Americans are putting those expenses now on credit cards. And of course, if you do that, it leads you to no way out. American Financing, though, can show you how to use your home's equity to pay off that debt. So you need to call American Financing today before you get to that point where you can't make those payments. Their salary based mortgage consultants are helping homeowners just like you to restructure their loans and consolidate debt to all without any upfront fees. And their customers get this, are saving an average of $800 per month. That's the equivalent of a $10,000 raise. It's fast, it's simple and it could save your budget this summer. So call now before it's too late. 866-886-2026 again, 866-886-2026 or go online and visit American financing.net next. All right, back with Joe. Joe, I said in a monologue, I deal with a lot of Democrats who've never met Donald Trump and they seem to not have any kind of fingertip feel for what he's like and ways to approach trying to beat him again on issues not talking about elections. What do you know from having spent time with him? What's your human intelligence tell you about how you take advantage of where he might be vulnerable to beat him?
- [50:19]
Joe Scarborough
I take him off the field. I take him off the field. You know, this is the thing. You know, I Remember in the 1980s and a lot of Republicans like myself took great glee at Democrats calling, you know, Ronald Reagan an idiot, a B list actor. The fascist gun in the west back in 1980 wins a minute. He wins a landslide. 1984, it's the same thing. He's too old, he's too hobbled. He can't win. 1984, he wins 49 of 50 states. But it doesn't end there. They continue attacking Ronald Reagan. And I would laugh. He's not even running again and you're still attacking him. And Reagan leaves with a 60% plus approval rating. But it didn't stop there. The obsession on Reagan continued. It still continues. People still come on my show today and they will attack Ronald Reagan. Every problem that ever began began with Ronald Reagan. You had great Authors. You had people like Edmund Morris, who wrote the most extraordinary biographies about Teddy Roosevelt. I believe he won Pulitzer Prize. Then he was allowed to write. Then he was allowed to write Ronald Reagan's, and it was authorized. And he just lost his mind. He started making up characters and making up. Rick Perlstein did the same thing. Nixon Land and Before the Storm are two of the greatest. He's a liberal, but they're two of the greatest works of history on the rise of the conservative movement in America.
- [52:01]
Mark Halperin
Right.
- [52:02]
Joe Scarborough
That I've read. Our friend Pat Buchanan said the same thing about it. And then he wrote a book about Nixon, and he just lost the plot.
- [52:09]
Mark Halperin
So how does that. How does that apply? How does that apply to how Democrats should talk about Trump now?
- [52:14]
Joe Scarborough
Why fight against Ronald Reagan when you can fight against Congressman Quimby? Right. From Hackensack.
- [52:24]
Mark Halperin
Yeah.
- [52:25]
Joe Scarborough
Or from, from, from, from, you know, Western Des Moines or wherever they're from. Don't go after. Unless it's in the primary. If you're in the primary, go ahead, run against Donald Trump. You get to the general election. You don't want to have anything to do with Donald Trump. It's like the Iraq War. At some point, I just told people I'm just not going to debate the Iraq war anymore. We've done it for 10 years. You have your views, I have my views. It's the same thing with Donald Trump. Everybody has their hardened positions. And you're not running against Donald Trump. You're running against Congressman Quimby, who is no Donald Trump, and you'll be able to vent him. Republicans don't win usually when Donald Trump's not at the top of the ticket, take him completely out of the race. If you're a boxer and you have the choice to fight against Muhammad Ali or Chuck Wepner or Jerry Cooney.
- [53:27]
Mark Halperin
Go with Cooney.
- [53:29]
Joe Scarborough
You want to go with the bleeders? You want to fight the bleeders? If you have a chance to fight Mike Tyson or Michael Spinks. Michael Spinks won a gold medal, but he also got the hell beat out of him by Mike Tyson. Stay away from those guys.
- [53:46]
Mark Halperin
What makes Trump Muhammad Ali? What skills does he have that makes you say, don't take him on?
- [53:51]
Joe Scarborough
Well, I mean, it depends on what you know. Gallup will have him in the 30s. Quinnipiac has him in the 30s. Others still have him at 45%. I have no idea how Donald Trump's still sitting at 45% with, you know, with all the things that have happened over the past decade, from January 6th to the Qatari jets, to crypto coins, etc.
- [54:12]
Mark Halperin
But you do have some idea. You do have some idea.
- [54:15]
Joe Scarborough
Well, part of it is Trump's innate skills to flood the zone with disinformation, to overwhelm, to constantly know how to play the media. But what I'm saying is push that to the side. You don't have to deal with that because you're not running against Donald Trump in 26. You're not fighting against Tyson in 26. You're not fighting Against Ali in 26. You're fighting against Chuck Webner, and he's no Muhammad Ali. Now, this, by the way, for people that are old, you'll know who Chuck Wepner is. He fought Ali. It didn't end well.
- [54:53]
Mark Halperin
He's. He's in Google, he's in ChatGPT. Don't worry.
- [54:57]
Joe Scarborough
He's also. He also made the COVID of Sports Illustrated saying he was going to beat Muhammad Ali. He did. But you have a chance, though, right? You have a chance to run against the individual members of Congress, the individual senators, the individual state legislators, and again, use Donald Trump to raise money in the primary, et cetera, et cetera. But once you get to the general election, it's baked in the cake. And there are many things I do not understand how he continues to do as well as he did. But that's not a Democrat's problem anymore, unless they're fighting him in Washington, D.C. on these issues.
- [55:38]
Mark Halperin
Right.
- [55:38]
Joe Scarborough
If he or she are running for Congress or the state legislature or the governors, governors, leadership, look forward. What are you going to do over the next four years when Donald Trump's out of office?
- [55:51]
Mark Halperin
Right.
- [55:51]
Joe Scarborough
And I think Democrats will have a much better chance of winning instead of being obsessed on trying to crack the code on Donald Trump.
- [55:58]
Mark Halperin
So people running for office since 26, you say focus on your Republican opponent in the general, not Trump. What about people thinking of running for president? Should they be a Democrat? Should they be talking about Trump, or should they similarly move on and talk about the.
- [56:11]
Joe Scarborough
No, no again? Because Trump is so baked into the cake again. It's like the Iraq War. You just. Nobody's going to change their mind about Donald Trump. And we keep thinking this is going to happen and this will. This is when the walls are closing in on Don. Something I've probably said 87 times. No, no, it's. The walls aren't going to close in on Donald Trump. And that's not your concern. Your concern is getting elected to Congress. Your concern is winning the House of Representatives. Your concern is taking over the committees, and by doing so, being able to stop a lot of what Republicans are doing. And see what I just said there. I didn't talk about Donald Trump. I talked about Republicans. Because these Republican senators and congressmen and congresswoman, they're the ones who are responsible for giving massive tax cuts to the richest Americans, the biggest multinational corporations, the people that run tech monopolies while slashing health care for people in rural America. They voted. Without that vote, it would have never passed. So focus on them and. And keep landing those body blows, those political body blows. And Democrats have a great chance of really doing well in 26.
- [57:35]
Mark Halperin
All right, so let's take it back from the midterms to where we are now. Trump's doing a bunch of stuff. And again, I'm just curious, how do you think the Democrats should approach this? To either beat him or to not take him on? He's going after universities. Is that a fight Democrats should have? And if so, what should they say about it? What should they say about it?
- [57:54]
Joe Scarborough
Well, it's very simple. I mean, do you like winning? I mean, maybe Americans are sick of winning. Maybe they're sick of America having the strongest economy on the planet. Maybe they're sick and tired of us winning Nobel Prizes and having one breakthrough after another in science, in medicine, in technology, in all the things that America has dominated since 1945. If you're sick of that, then go ahead and go along with the Republicans and continue allowing university funding to be slashed. But the fact is, the economic engine of America, including its victory in World War II, that came out of Detroit, but that also came out of research on college campuses that helped us beat the Japanese, helped us beat the Germans. It's insane.
- [58:50]
Mark Halperin
Okay? It's insane. R and D. So what about when Maggot says, so you're defending Harvard values.
- [58:58]
Joe Scarborough
I'm defending American values. I want the best and the brightest to do research. I want to hold Harvard accountable where Harvard needs to be held accountable. But at the same time, it's a private institution.
- [59:14]
Mark Halperin
Yeah.
- [59:16]
Joe Scarborough
And because of that, Harvard can run its campus the way it wants to run its campus. But if it gets funding from the federal government, it is fair to say, yes, there will be some strings attached. But don't cut medical research for Alzheimer's, don't cut medical research for cancer, for all of these other things.
- [59:38]
Mark Halperin
Right. So sometimes one has to say the right thing, even if it's of part politically losing. But whether history will punish Donald Trump for cutting university funding and making all these Ivy League Schools and others jump through hoops whether history will punish them. Trump's getting his way now. These universities are bending the knee to him. So if you're someone who thinks this is bad, that's a loss. Is it a winnable fight? In other words, the rhetoric you're using is what some Democrats are saying, is that a winnable fight? And if it's not a winnable fight, should Democrats keep at it?
- [60:10]
Joe Scarborough
Well, yes, they should keep at it, because the fight, the fight will continue. You certainly, you can say, there are a lot of things that I disagree. And by the way, I say it all the time. There are a lot of things that Harvard has done through the years that I think are just absolutely crazy. At the same time, I don't want the federal government, because I'm a conservative. I don't want the federal government telling Harvard what to teach in classrooms.
- [60:33]
Mark Halperin
Right. But just at one point.
- [60:34]
Joe Scarborough
But just at one point, that's up to private. That's up to private institutions. What we really, the small government Republicans support the federal government of the federal behemoth going into classrooms and telling people what they can teach students. That's insane.
- [60:51]
Mark Halperin
But just the one point you've made a couple times now, again, it's sophisticated and subtle, but I've never heard another Democrat, a Democratic elected official, say, well, there are things that Harvard does that I disagree with, even on their failure to protect their Jewish students. Even, even, even supporters of Israel who are Democrats. That's the missing piece. All right, what about what he's doing with law firms?
- [61:15]
Joe Scarborough
Like, by the way, by the way, I want to go back because, because again, I'm a conservative and I believe in free markets. I believe in free choice. Let me tell you, first of all, they have a responsibility to protect Jewish students on campus. They have a responsibility to protect Muslim students on campus, Catholic students on campus. Conservatives, they have that responsibility. Beyond that, if they want to be woke, if they want to do what they've been doing for the past 20, 30, 40 years and be woke. Well, you know what parents can do, what parents have started to do over the past four or five years. You know, when I first moved to Connecticut, I talked to the parents. Where are your kids going to school? Oh, they're going to Yale, they're going to Harvard, they're going to bc, they're going here, they're going to George Town.
- [62:02]
Mark Halperin
Right.
- [62:02]
Joe Scarborough
I ask the same question now, you know what they say? They're going to Georgia, they're going to smu, they're going to wake Forest, they're going to Virginia. They're going to. They're voting with their feet. And that's what happens in the free market, right? If Harvard can't figure that out, if Yale can't figure that out, if. If other schools can't figure that out, they will lose students like they're losing right now. And we don't need the federal government doing that. We need federal government saying, you got to protect your Jewish students, you got to protect your Muslim students, you got to protect your Catholic students, you got to protect conservatives, progressives, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But we don't want the federal government telling professors what to teach. That there's nothing conservative about that. That's lunacy.
- [62:45]
Mark Halperin
What about speaking up on behalf of a group that can't be particularly popular? America's big law firms. Is that a fight Democrats should pick or just let Trump do?
- [62:54]
Joe Scarborough
God, yes, God.
- [62:56]
Mark Halperin
What do you say about that?
- [62:58]
Joe Scarborough
Okay. The rule of law I figured out as a congressman when I traveled around the world. But I didn't know this when I first went in there, despite the fact I was an attorney. There are a lot of things that make America extraordinary. But one of the things that really lays a foundation for this extraordinary American experiment and the reason our. Our constitutional republic has survived the way it has, has been the rule of law. And you can't have presidents, you can't have politicians going in and intimidating law firms to not represent certain people because the president or the House Majority leader or somebody else doesn't like that. And so that cuts away at the heart of the rule of law. Let me name one more issue that I think Democrats should talk about. And I've had a lot of Democrats go, we don't want to talk about this because people don't like foreign aid. Are you kidding me? The slashing of USAID is such a tragedy. You got the richest man in the world wielding a chainsaw, literally proposing cuts that are killing the poorest children on the planet. And not only that gives us a soft power that anybody that's ever been in the White House understands is extraordinarily important. Just about anybody that's ever been a diplomat understands is extraordinarily important. Not just because all of those tons of food that go to these countries have the American flag on it, but because we also get great intel on what the Chinese are doing, on what the Russians are doing.
- [65:00]
Mark Halperin
But is that a winning political issue or just an important point to fight for?
- [65:05]
Joe Scarborough
You know what I found, Mark, is if I care about it and I'm passionate about it and I talk about it, and it means a lot to me. What I find is the, it's very easy for me to go into town hall meetings and make other people care about it. And so, yeah, soft power is, is, is extraordinarily important to talk about when, when we're slashing foreign aid, when we're slashing taking care of the poorest of God's creatures. At the same time we're taking down the antennas of Voice of America. At the same time, we're gutting our diplomatic core. At the same time, we're cutting at the very heart of, of America's ability to tell our story across the globe. All of that works together and undermines soft power, which undermines the power of the United States of America. You know, not everything, not everything is determined by the latest billion dollar weapons system. A lot of times it's just the relationships that you're building on the ground.
- [66:11]
Mark Halperin
You know, Donald Trump and you're not discombobulated by him. And this phrase Trump derangement syndrome can be overstated, but I find a lot of Democrats react, whether it's on social media or on the House floor or on a TV interview, they react seemingly discombobulated. And again, a shorthand for that can be Trump derangement syndrome. So if you, I don't know if you agree with that view or not, but how should Democrats think about whether to react to Trump and separate a winning issue or a vitally important issue from their visceral reaction to they just don't like the guy. And he, he triggers them into sometimes saying more or different than they should.
- [66:47]
Joe Scarborough
Say, well, if I can, if I can humbly suggest this to my Democratic friends, yeah, they can look at it the way that Mika and I looked at it after the election. We thought Donald Trump said a lot of extraordinarily dangerous things. We thought he said things that would, if implemented, would make America a weaker place, make America a more dangerous place, make America a meaner place. And then there was an election, and 78 million Americans disagreed with us. And so at that point you're like, okay, well, 78 million Americans disagree with us. People always say, you know, hey, would you have changed anything you said about Donald Trump? No, I wouldn't have changed, said anything I said about Donald Trump during the campaign. But you look forward and you go, we've been lecturing Republicans for four years about respecting the outcome of the elections. We have to respect the outcome of the election. And this is where the American people are. And it doesn't mean that we have to agree with everything that Donald Trump says. But what it does mean is if Democrats ever want to take power again, they're going to get some of those Trump voters voting for them. Here's what I think is the underlying problem, Mark, and it's something that I've seen since first running for Congress. It's something I've seen through today. Democrats want to be right. Republicans want to win. And Bill Clinton, what did he say?
- [68:33]
Mark Halperin
Better to be strong and wrong than right and weak?
- [68:36]
Joe Scarborough
Strong and wrong than right and weak. I think you can be right and you can still win. But I would just say, and it would help Democrats to understand that Donald Trump is, is the master of, of, of distraction, of flooding the zone of getting you off the points that you want to talk about, the things that you think are the most important, and, and being angry, showing. Well, that sure didn't work. Leading, leading into the 24 election. Let the Republicans be angry. Let the Republicans be pissed off. Let the Republicans be the champions of separating mothers from their children, of grabbing people off of college campuses and throwing them in jail illegally. Let Republicans do that. Call it out. But tell Americans what your vision for America is and why what they're doing is wrong. And again, the goal is, at the end of the day, get it back to affordability. We just had an inflation number come out today. Inflation's going to continue going up, most likely. It's certainly what the Fed's concerned about. It's what the numbers suggest. Americans still, if you look, Donald Trump scores even polls where Donald Trump may be at 44, 45% approval rating, he's in the 30s on inflation. He's in the 30s on affordability. That's, again, going back to the old boxing analogy. That's where you beat Gerry Cooney or Richard, the Princeton College boxing champion. You don't go up against Ali. You go up against the congressman or congresswoman you're running against, and you hammer them on affordability. You hammer them on the tax cuts they gave to the richest people on the planet and slashing health care for the poorest of Americans and also for working Americans in the rural countryside.
- [70:43]
Mark Halperin
When this switches for the Democrats from how to beat Trump to, I believe, how to beat J.D. vance, because I think he'll be the Republican nominee. What's different about how to be JD Vance as compared to how to be Trump?
- [70:54]
Joe Scarborough
Nothing. You take what Donald Trump has done that no other politician but Donald Trump would get away with. And you put it on the congressman. You take what Donald Trump has done that no other Republican could get away with, and you put it on JD Vance or you put it on whatever Republican is over there, because they're going to be begging for Donald Trump's endorsement again. You know, it's. And, and you and I have talked about this before. It's funny. Republicans after Reagan thought, oh, well, yeah, well, we've got this Reagan coalition. That's just awesome. They didn't. Reagan had the Reagan coalition. Same thing with Barack Obama. What was it? The coalition of the coalition, the coalition of the ascendant. It's a new era. It's a new age. We've got the coalition of The Ascendant in 2008. Two years later, the Tea Party wins. Two years later, Obama wins because he's Obama. Two years later, Democrats lose again because they're not Obama. So again, Donald Trump. Republicans who think they can get away with what Donald Trump got away with. That's just like Al Gore thinking he could get away with what Bill Clinton got away with on the campaign trail. Or, or Hillary Clinton thinking she. No, Bill Clinton could get away with what Bill Clinton did because he's Bill Clinton. And I'm talking politics on the campaign trail. Same thing with Donald Trump.
- [72:31]
Mark Halperin
Right. All right. Treat this like a debate. Your closing statement, one minute. If the question is, Mr. Scarborough, what's the key to beating Donald Trump not in the ballot box, but beating him in his Washington agenda, what would you say? One minute. What's the key for Democrats to focus on for beating Donald Trump?
- [72:49]
Joe Scarborough
Well, well, I don't focus on Donald Trump. I focus on the United States Congress. I focus on the courts. I focus on everything but Donald Trump because I don't want to get enmeshed in all of the ground noise that has surrounded Donald Trump and his political career over the past 10 years. I focus on the weak spots. Where is the weakness? The weakness is in the Republican Party Party. The weaknesses in the Republican Congress. The weakness are in the legal arguments that they're making in the courts. You look at, you know, most generic ballots. Tests that I've seen lately suggest Democrats are doing pretty darn well right now. That's the weak spot. That's where you go. That's where you hammer. And if you're running against, let's say a, a Republican that is holding a seat that Biden won, my God, again, talk about Donald Trump to enter the primary, but then turn and look at all of the terrible things that Republican has had to vote For. Because Donald Trump has told him he had to vote for it. And by the way, that big bill, I mean, if anybody cares about the debt anymore, I mean, the debt's going to go up $20 trillion. We just passed $37 trillion in debt. It's going to be $57 trillion at the end of this decade. That is not sustainable. And why do we have that debt? We have that debt because that Republican member of Congress voted yes. That hypocrite in the, in the Freedom Caucus that claimed that they were for smaller government, voted for the biggest bill in the history of the United States of America. Voted for the biggest deficits ever in the history of the United States of America. Voted for the biggest debt ever, the history of the United States of America. And who were the big winners? The richest billionaires. The monopolists that own tech companies that, that, that, that, that want to basically, you know, trap our children on their phones night and day in multinational corporations. This is, this is. Again, I don't know how Democrats can blow this, but they are Democrats, after all, so anything's possible.
- [75:16]
Mark Halperin
And they are constantly lured into fighting Donald Trump.
- [75:19]
Joe Scarborough
Yeah, don't, don't take the bait. Take, don't take the bait. Go after the congressman or congresswoman you're running against and just hammer them day in and day out. And just look at the big, beautiful bill they call it. Oh, you think it's beautiful? You think it's beautiful that Mark Zuckerberg got the biggest tax cut ever while you're taking away health care and you're making hospitals in our district shut down entire wings of pediatric care because you voted for that bill? Seriously? Just because you couldn't say no to Donald Trump. Oh, my God, that's sad. They need to send me to Washington. I'll know how to say no to things that are bad for this district. That's how you do it. I've done it before. It works.
- [76:12]
Mark Halperin
You can see Joe Scarborough every day on MSNBC 6am for three or four hours, and then you want to listen to Joe Scarborough. Joe, you got a podcast, don't you?
- [76:21]
Joe Scarborough
I hear I do, but it's not as. It's not as popular as your podcast and your podcast. Mark, I got to say, I looked at the charts recently, and you're like the Beatles who, like, occupied the top five spaces on Billboard's Top Hot 164. But you've got, you've got, you've got, like, podcasts all over the place.
- [76:39]
Mark Halperin
I'm more like the rud. More like the Rudles. More like the Rudles and the Beatles. Very grateful to you for making time and and again, it's very hard to find any Democrat with an actual theory of the case about how to beat Donald Trump. And grateful to you for making time and sharing.
- [76:52]
Joe Scarborough
Well, you know what? The way you beat Donald Trump is? You don't even say that. This is how we beat the Republican Party. Yeah, the Republican Party is extraordinarily unpopular. Run, run against the Republican Party because Donald Trump is not going to be on the ballot.
- [77:07]
Mark Halperin
Again. Joe, thank you. Grateful to you.
- [77:10]
Joe Scarborough
All right. Thank you, Mark.
- [77:12]
Mark Halperin
All right, that's it for today's program. We'll be back next Tuesday. Another brand new episode. Make sure you subscribe and download nextup wherever you get your podcasts or watch us on YouTube. If you stay close, nexters, you will always know what's coming. Next up, we quilt this city. We quilt this city with a comfy.
- [77:35]
Joe Scarborough
Roll with quilted northern, to be specific. So cushy and so plushy. Just give it a try. Feeling is believing. Quilted with three cushy layers for your comfort.
- [77:51]
Mark Halperin
The quilted comfort of quilted northern.
- [77:56]
Joe Scarborough
We know what's comfy and now you do, too. Keep it Quilted with quilted northern.